A beam of pale-yellow light filters in from the window. The color is, slow and dim in comparison to the light of the sun, diffused amidst the darkness outside and the slow misting rain that trickles down from the sky casing the world into haze. The light emanates from a single streetlamp some twenty meters distant just next to the parking lot where a single car sits alone, dark, and dripping with thin rivulets of water.

Inside Admiral Kelly slumps at her desk, her head down against her arms, her breathing soft and slow. She has fallen asleep atop a pile of f funding requests, and drafts for political speeches which she refuses to let be written for her. Her hair has come undone from its usually tight bun and now splays around her resting head like the wings of a raven.

Just visible, under the dimming beams of light from the streetlamps, the seal of the, Neo-Federation Coalition, is just visible on the upper right hand corner of the majority of documents upon which she rests her head. It is their party that supports her campaign for the presidency, them who has supplied her funding, while she supplies the face.

She has had to give up a lot of the things she loves to be here, and truth be told Admiral Kelly never wanted to be president, and still doesn't want to be, but the truth of the matter is that no good man wants power, but when good men do not rise up to claim those seats, than it creates a vacuum, allowing unscrupulous men to enter. This has been evident in politics for thousands of years, a government will be set up and good men don't want to lead. Never was this fact more true than George Washington (first president of what was once the United States) himself, he didn't want to lead the nation but was coerced into it by his fellow compatriots, and during his tenure as president he gave wisdom that, if the united states would have listened, than perhaps it wouldn't have gone to hell so quickly.

Do not involve yourself In international politics if you can.

Do not create a party system.

Do not divide yourselves.

But then he left, and over the years the number of good men dwindled away, sure they all had their faults, no man is perfect, but there was a difference. In the beginning good men COULD become president, but by the end corrupt politicians had created a system that allowed only the cruel and the wealthy to rise to power, men who committed fraud, cheated on their wives, took bribes, classist, elitist, racist, stupid, naïve, dumb, grasping, greedy, power hungry men, and eventually women, who drove their own country to ruin on the backs of good men to burdened by bitterness and frustration to do anything about it.

Admiral Kelly did not claim to be perfect, hell she didn't even know if she was "good" but she DID believe, and deep down in her bones, she feared that the next election would be make or break the world as she knew it. Though she is part of the NFC, it isn't much referred to like that these days.

Pro-alliance in opposition to the People's World Party, now known as the Isolationists.

These two parties in general represented a spectrum of ideas on a continuum, though they were the most powerful.

She hated to be running in a party at all, but if she was going to get anywhere, she needed the funding, and based on their nicknames everyone knew where the new parties stood. The Isolationists wanted to keep out of intergalactic politics thinking that earth and her colonies would be safer if they simply kept to their own, while her party argued that it was strong alliances with the GA that would keep them safe from intergalactic threats.

She believed that, and it had never been more true than it was now, with everything they knew about the void and the makers and..... well and everything.

Admiral Kelly felt it was her duty to spearhead the alliance and keep her men in the air.

Because when it came down to it, all of this was about her men. She passed up another ship and became an admiral, became a desk jockey to create policy that would help her boots on the ground, help her men in the air be as safe as they could, and when politicians and policy makers got in her way, she decided to become one of them, and when they got in her way she decided to become president, because only then would she have control over their military forces.s

Admiral Kelly gave up her dreams to become a woman who could be a leader of men, lead them out of the darkness and into the light, and she was going to be damned if anyone got in her way.

And so she sleeps on her desk, tired out from a day of tedious paperwork, phone calls, and conferences.

On her desk, within view sits precious images of her family, oriented so , during times of frustration and pain, she can look down and see them and remember what she is doing all of this for.

She misses them, and she knows they miss her, but she cannot stop.

She wakes when the light snuffs out.

Admiral Kelly fought during the pan-Asian war, mostly above the battlefields in sleek fighter jets over what had once been Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Taiwan, and the southern coast of China, then the Combined East Asian Alliances, she had even had her plane shot down once, and fell behind enemy lines into enemy territory teaming with enemy soldiers who were known for their fast and loose understanding of things like "The Geneva Conventions."

Four months, that's how long it had taken her to get out of that hell, but she had, and if there was one thing, she had learned during that time.... It was to sleep lightly and with one eye open.

Admiral Kelly lifts her head from her desk eyes peering sharply into the dark.

When she blinks, her vision is not clouded by sleep, but sharp and wary as if she had not been in a world of dreams just moments earlier. Under her desk, her hand is already, reaching, slowly, for the antique 45 caliber pistol that belong to her great great great ect. Grandfather.

Across the room, the shadows pool, and it seems to her that.... Despite being so dark she can still.... See.

It is a difficult sensation to describe, sight without sight.

"General Kazna I presume." She says, and her voice is steady, unfazed by the glowing golden eyes that stare back at her from the darkness, "We have not been formally introduced."

Her voice remains calm and even, as if she is making conversation about the weather, or listening to a relative overshare about a particularly harry mole located in a particularly sensitive spot.

The golden eyes blink at her from the darkness, and the shadows recede somewhat to reveal the tall , dark form, standing in her glorious dark armor, and carrying a massive black spear, so dark it seems to suck in light and drown it.

"What do you want?" Kelly asks

Her voice is dismissive sounding for all the world like she has better things to do than talk to this monster, which, in fact, she does. She could list plenty of better things to do.

Finish her paperwork.

Sleep

Pick her nose

Take a shit

The list could go on.

"I am simply here to talk, no need for that weapon your hiding."

Admiral Kelly's fingers curl around the pistol grip, and while she does not draw it from under her desk, she doesn't let go, "And I am supposed to believe you because..... "

"Because if I wanted to kill you I would be killing you, not talking about it."

That was a fair enough point, from what she knew of Saint Sunny's mother, she was not apparently the type for monologuing.

"Well why don't we stop wasting both of our time, I already know why you're here, and I'm not interested, so you can get the hell out of my office."

Kazna doesn't move, "Vir told you, I assume."

"You think his friends and family members wouldn't tell him that his best friends evil skank whore of a mother has been trying to poison them all to the dark side like some sort of Sith lord." Hell, he was starting to rub off on her wasn't he? Now SHE was making 2000-year-old star wars references.

Instead of being offended Kazna laughs.

This makes Kelly mad, "How stupid do you have to be to try something like that. On Thomas? Are you stupid, on lord Avex? You threaten his father's soul and then expect him to bow to you. No Kazna, the Celzex have declared war on the void."

Kazna sneers, "Is that supposed to scare me.... A couple of furballs with nuclear weapons, what are they going to do? Blow up the shadows?" Kazna held her hands out to either side, "Well I don't know if you have noticed, but space is shadow. I can be anywhere and everywhere I want to be at any time, there is nothing that you or yours can do to hurt me. I am simply giving you all the opportunity to save yourselves."

"Why." Kelly demands, standing from her seat. She leaves the gun behind because she knows, Kazna is telling at least a partial truth, if she wanted her dead, she would already be dead. Whatever she wants it isn't blood, perhaps it is simply to gloat, to sew the seeds of doubt and fear into them. But if that's the case she has com to the wrong place and is facing the wrong person.

Admiral Kelly steps around the side of her desk, which, up till now had been acting as a barrier between them.

She strides across the room in three powerful steps until she is chest to chest with the Drev who is a good three feet taller than she is if not more. She has to crane her head back to look up at The dark general, but this doesn't bother her. "Take your raggedy shadows, and your fear mongering, and your threats and get the fuck out of my office, and the next time you assume to intimidate Adam's friends, take a good long think and realize that we aren't the kind of people who are afraid of the likes of you."

And to her surprise kazna begins to laugh, it is a strange sound coming from a Drev, a sort of humming chirping noise that emanates from deep in the throat. The laugh, is a humorless one, more derisive than anything, and she looks down at Kelly with her flashing golden eyes.

"You think this is about Admiral Vir?"

Kelly pauses, "Are you saying its not?"

Kazna continues to laugh, she even pats Kelly on the shoulder like they are sharing some sort of personal joke between friends, "So presumptuous and pompous humans are, always thinking yourselves to be the center of the universe, to be the center of conflict, but you aren't." She steps away from Kelly to turn and look out the window.

Al the lights on the street has been snuffed out, but looking beyond that, she squints to find that all of the lights in the city have gone out as well.

In the distance she can hear the wailing of sirens, and for the first time, in what must have been hundreds of years, she can look up at the sky and see stars, millions and millions of them choking the inky blackness of the sky above backed by a trickling strand of smoke that is the milky way, a simple smear of light just behind a trail of stars, marking one arm of their spiral galaxy.

It is an awe-inspiring sight, but still manages to chill her to the bone.

"The universe is more vast then you can imagine, this fight goes deeper and longer than your tiny mind can even comprehend." She laughs, "And you have the audacity to think that this is just about one man and his group of irrelevant friends." Kazna looks at Admiral Kelly, "This conflict is a drop in an ocean compared to all that is going on out there in the universe. I am simply a loyal emissary sent to deal with this particular conflict because they couldn't be bothered to do it themselves. That is how small you are." Her voice grows harsh, "You are so stupid, insignificant and inconsequential that they pulled me from prison and gave me a deal just so they wouldn't have to dirty their hands with the likes of you and your ilk. You are NOTHING to them, you are less than nothing to them. The void sickness was an unintentional side effect of your own stupidity, not an act of open war."

She sneers and her golden eyes flash, "And Admiral Vir,, the little bastard has the pomp to think he's important ." She laughs, "Why, why is he important? Because a few aliens like him and he has a spaceship, because your little alliance thinks he's important. "She continues to laugh, "Because he has talked directly with the makers?"

Kelly watches her laugh eyes narrowed with annoyance.

"The only reason Admiral Vir is of any importance is because he has managed to stupidly wedge himself into the axis of everything that is going on in your stupid little slice of the universe, but at the end of the day he is just a man, nothing more special than that, a flawed imperfect man who is going to fall like everyone else on the rising tide."

Kelly looks at Kazna with a raised eyebrow, "If he isn't important than why are you going after his friends.... Is this about him being married to Sunny?"

She sees the Genera's eyes flash with hate.
"I do not care who Chalan allows to defile her" It is clear to Kelly that Kazna very much does car about who is defiling Sunny. The look of disgust on her face is so poignant that it seems to fill the room.

"I believe you." She says dryly, "I imagine there is plenty of defiling going on.... Probably even right now. They did just get married."

Kazna turns on her, and Kelly realizes goading her was probably a mistake, but it felt good to do. She keeps calm despite being sure Kazna is going to knock off her head like she's playing T-ball, "You didn't answer my question."

Kazna reins herself in, but only barely, "he is a small cog in the machine, but still a cog I can break, and any ally of his I break weakens the machine."

"This is a cog you will not break."

Kazna looks at her with amusement, "You see Admiral Kelly Admiral Vir may be the axis right now, but if you win the election, it is you that will become that axis, you that will spin the cogs of this small machine, so I will be candid with you in a way that I was not candid for the others, "Throw in your lot with me. Work with me, and I will help you win the election, once you are that axis there will be no more war, no more conflict, the galaxy will bow at your feet. You can keep everyone you love and care for safe."

Kelly stares at Kazna, there is silence in the room, heavy like winter.

Now it is her turn to sneer, "You must think I'm stupid. I know what the void wants, it wants chaos, it wants to destroy everything. You can't promise me protection because it goes against everything that your employers believe It. So you can take your honey coated lies and shove it up you're your ass with all the other shit where it belongs, now get out of my office."

Kazna does not speak, but looks at her with an expression that almost borders on pity.

She shakes her head, and without another word she turns and vanishes.

Kelly has to raise her hands to shield her eyes as the streetlights come back on. Overhead the city lights wash out the stars, and she is standing alone in her office. Footsteps come running down the hall and her door is thrown open as a young lieutenant runs into the room. Her hair is a mess around her shoulders and her eyes are wide with worry, "Admiral, are you alright!"

She nods, "Just fine, what is happening."

"The power went out along the entire eastern seaboard, no on knows what caused it, the VP is already in the air while everyone tries to figure out what just happened, Some people are saying domestic terrorists, others are saying alien attack."

Kelly frowned, "No, not terrorists or aliens, the Eastern seaboard would be impossible to shut off all at once, not since its sections were compartmentalized.... No this was something much much worse