Paved With Daggers

[Zapp]

It started with a single Incubi, in Rheinland. A diplomatic meeting of enough importance to warrant a Governor, but not enough for the Emperor to leave Kusari. Tekagi was chosen to go by the Emperor himself, as the tense times required the touch of a man of known political and diplomatic skill. And so the Incubi crawled inside the Governor and flicked over that first terrible domino. Numerous other Incubi were stored aboard his ship, and everyone of the crew was Enlightened.

Thus the pattern was set to infect the soldiers, which would prove a costly mistake. Instead of solidifying political power beyond Governor Tekagi, they believed that the battle would begin -- and be won -- soon enough that having soldiers was more important than having political or corporate power. Of course, this belief was terribly mistaken. The Blood Dragons, with the help of Edison Trent, killed Tekagi and planted a bomb in Heaven's Gate. The Dragon fighter pilots demonstrated their widely-acclaimed prowess, mopping up most of the remaining Aoi Iseijin, and the First Nomad War was over almost before it began.

Then a reporter, a man named Noritaka Kamuta, was assigned to do a story covering Heaven's Gate. It had been a few months since the incident, and Kusari as a whole had not heard from their most beloved landmark. Overnight the Tohoku system had become restricted space to all non-Naval Forces ships. Noritaka Kamuta managed to sneak into Tohoku, and when he got to Heaven's Gate, he found a deserted and desolate station. It's magnificence was not diminished however, and he just happened upon a Nomad Incubi as he searched the station for signs of what had happened...

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