Journal Jorkhor 06.July 2763 Solar Time
My name is Jorkhor, an old name, I know. But it’s been in my family for generations. I’m a Soleni, a citizen of the Solar Empire. The Empire has its roots in the Earth system, but I was born right here, in the Proxima Centauri system; in fact, I’ve been my whole life.
My family, The Tharkels, have been serving the Empire for generations now, so much so that we’re a pretty big deal. My father, General Rakhor Tharkel is practically a legend, known in every corner of the Empire as the Hero of Mars. During the Martian civil war, he was a Major who single-handedly led a battalion to crush the separatist rebellion; he’s a war hero, they even call him the “Fist of the Empire,” and it’s not just him.
My whole family is filled with heroes, my siblings, my uncles, and even my mother. They’re all officers in the Solar Force, and they’ve all survived wars and conflicts; they’ve all proven themselves.
My family is an extremely important part of the Empire, all of them…except me.
You see, I am what you may call…a disappointment; at least I am to my father. I’ve never been able to live up to his expectations, which means I technically have lived up to his expectations because he never had any expectations from me…but I don’t wanna go into the technicalities of that because it gets confusing.
Just know that I’m the problem child. My entire life, nothing I did was ever enough; I tried to play Teraball and become a professional sportsman. I wanted to play all over the Empire, from the Centauri to the Homeworld; that was a dream of mine, to play on Earth, in front of the Solar Emperor, at the heart of the Empirum. But my father said it was worthless; a career in sports was below our family, he said.
So I gave up that dream and decided maybe I could do some good as a scientist. I have always had a natural curiosity for alien worlds. I thought I could make discoveries for the good of the Empire, maybe even find a cure to the Silver Plague, which has devastated the lunar colonies of Jupiter. I was close too, then my father found out, and he had the same thing to say. “This is worthless.” Scientific endeavor only weakened a man’s physical strength, or he claimed.
And thus, I abandoned another profession. Not long after, I decided to look into the arcane arts. Magic had always been an interest; as a kid, I shared a talent for it, so I decided to study it, but that, too, was unacceptable to my father. “Magic is a perversion of nature,” he said; no child of his would go near it. And so, that, too, came to an end.
But to be completely honest, maybe I wouldn’t have proceeded with this also. I’m the kind of person who does many things but never wants to excel in anything, a jack of all trades if you will; nothing can hold my interest for long, and I’ve always used my father’s disappointment to wiggle my way out of things I do.
But that has led to my family thinking I’m truly worthless, that I just…can’t do anything. They’re wrong; I know I can; I just…I need a way to prove it to them.
So when I heard that the Empire was going to be sending a mission to the Dara system and they were offering a private military contract, it caught my interest.
A chance to travel away from the place where everyone knew my name, where I had the unbearable weight of my father’s legacy on my shoulders, where I could help people and make a name for myself…count me in.
The Empire wished to liberate the Daryans from the oppressive control of their Emperor and to elevate their Homeworld, Dara 3, to join the Solar Empire and all its glory. This would all be done in the name of humanity, and I wanted to be a part of it.
It felt like my calling, and the pay was good.
Additionally, this was the job to escape earth and family. Once I was on that shuttle, there wasn’t going to be any turning back; it was permanent, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to quit, even if I wanted to. That was my way of proving to my family that I could do something that was not worthless.
I didn’t tell them. Though, I didn’t tell anyone. The Dara system was a dangerous place; it was the home of mutations, nightmares, and necrotic daydreams.
No one was going to think I could do it, no one at all. But I will! Even if I am the only one who believes that and maybe, one day, they’d hear stories about Jorkhor, the Mercenary who brought the Dara Empire to its knees.
So I left an Intercom message for my family; it would automatically play for all of them an hour after the shuttle was going to launch. I don’t know if they gonna mind me or not, and to be honest, it doesn’t matter to me; I am starting a new life. I do not care what anyone else thinks of it.
A jack of all trades, someone who can do anything, a failed sportsman, a brilliant scientist who never invented anything, a man of magic, so many things, but master of none. That’s exactly what a mercenary is supposed to be, someone who can do whatever you need him to do, they’re not experts, but they get things done.
And that’s how it started; that’s how I got wrapped up in this war.
Journal Jorkhor 16.September 2763 Solar Time
It’s been a bit more than three months now since I am on this ship. My cryo chamber malfunctioned, so I’ve been awake the whole time.
I go to the Intercom all the time to try to get news from anywhere, but all I get are reports of mutants spawning all over the Earth system. On our Homeworld, on Mars, on the Lunar colonies…I guess the Dara beat us to the chase; they attacked first because that is where the origin of these mutants was traced to. 64 light-years from Earth, the heart of the Dara Empire, they attacked us.
It’s been chaos, all over the place, mutants and men, they’ve been fighting like crazy while I’m stuck here in this stupid cryoship.
I can’t do anything; I feel worthless, so I’ve been researching the enemy.
The Dara Empire is unpredictable, chaotic, and very dangerous, and we underestimated them.
They are up to something; I’ve been thinking about that endlessly for this whole time. That’s why the Empire sent this mission to investigate, but the Dara Empire made a preemptive strike. All I’ve been able to think about is why they would attack us. We’re stronger than them; we have better weapons…why take the risk.
I’ve been trying to prepare myself for what we’ll find once we actually reach our destination. I’ve been thinking about weapons, about battle strategy, about anything that I can. I can’t sleep, I can’t rest, all I can do is think.
So … what weapons will I use? The problem is that all these spaceships that bring us to Dara cannot carry much weight. And especially the new agents will only get weapons that can be easily crafted on Dara. Advanced weapons like rifles will not be available. The standard agent might get a mace and if lucky maybe a sword. At least I had some courses in ancient weapons and know how to use them.
When I think about the Daranian people, I feel this rage inside, trying to claw its way out, and the more I think about it, the angrier I get.
We know very little about their history, but they started off like us, a simple species, and they recently unified their warring factions under one Emperor. We are up against a younger, more violent, physically stronger version of your own race; this war will be a tough one.
It feels like an eternity, being stuck like this, unable to rest, constantly aware of every inch of space between me and the war that was waiting for me as soon as I would get off this ship.
Journal Jorkhor 15.October 2766 Solar Time
I’ve been on Dara 3 for over a year now; the war keeps getting worse.
We’ve got reinforcements, but the enemies keep coming. We were wrong about the Dara Empire; they’re nothing like us; they’re far more destructive, far more dangerous. They worship war, their machines; it’s like they’re alive, and their technology is on another level, something we can’t even fathom.
They’ve harnessed stellar power to make something called Pora Energy which works like batteries. But this energy can be assigned to any being that knows how to harvest it. It then distributes its power to the cells of your body and can be retrieved easily when needed. In contrast to batteries you can store this energy in your cells forever and you can store endless amounts. They charge their teleporters, weapons, guns, tanks and even warships with them. Pora energy is unlike anything we have imagined, and it will replace every power source in the open market. This will result in endless money and power for the Dara Empire.
But why this war? The Solar Empire was alway a defender of freedom for all aliens species and slavery was prohibited. The Dara Empire on the other hand enslaves many species on Dara I, II and III to mine for more Pora Energy.
The empire took their first money out of each trade and used it to build biological weapons now; it’s what they excel at; they can make mutants, viruses, and everything needed to subdue a whole species.
We can’t compete with that!
But there is more and maybe as worse as the Empire.
There is another alliance on Dara, separated from the Empire. They’re practically a cult called the “Dara Cult”, a religious order that is, by all reports, at least as dangerous as the Empire itself.
We have been about to keep the Dara Empire at bay for so long because we can handle their technologic warfare, but the Cult, they’re insane.
Reports even indicate that they eliminate their own people to create new necrotic, zombie like creatures that are completely uncontrollable.
We’re trapped here, surrounded on both sides, and all I can think is, what would my father think of me now.
I’m a Captain now, I have my own legion, and I’ve killed more mutants and Dara Empire agents than I can count. This war has changed me. I don’t fight for the Solar Empire anymore; I’m fighting for the people of Dara. To free them from the Empire and the Cult that threatens their every breath. But I don’t know how long we can keep this up; at this rate, it’s only a matter of time before this war reaches my base station; all we can do is prolong the inevitable.
Journal Jorkhor 1.January 2770 Solar Time
Another new year where we cannot celebrate. The war is taking its tolls.
I am known as Colonel Jorkhor Tharkel now. I have been on Dara for seven years, seven long brutal years. The Solar Empire has retreated from almost all base stations on Dara III. I now lead a legion of rebels in a small base station hidden in the Dara Desert. We are one of the last points of resistance against the Dara Empire.
The Dara Empire builds more and more mines and the Dara Cult is thriving in the Underground.
The Empire has a new power source now; they call it Kara energy; it’s from a local flower found in the heart of the Empire. They say it’s a thousand times more powerful than anything we’ve ever seen before.
The Dara Cult has had some battles with the Empire and restricts attacks mostly to the Underground areas they built for their experiments. But they have a common goal: Digging deeper!
It seems the Dara Cult and Dara Empire are digging deeper and deeper to find something. We only heard rumors about what that could be.
This war keeps getting worse, and sometimes I try to find a energy source for my will to survive and resist. The message of my father killed on earth by Daranian mutant attacks was much harder than I thought. My father was finally proud of me. But he took an entire mothership with mutants on it with him. They say the battle was glorious. He lived like a hero, and he died like one.
So many others have died, and so many more may, but we will win this war, one way or another.
I may not live to see that day, but the dark clouds of the Dara Empire and Cult will not touch my people; those in the Dara empire who do not want this war will be freed.
Liberation will come.
The Solar Empire is weakened, but good still remains.
This is Colonel Tharkel of the Dara mission, once known as Jorkhor the mercenary, signing off with the hope that whoever may find my logs has hope in my people and the courage to carry on. The conviction to win.
Long live the resistance!
Journal Jorkhor 3.February 2770 Solar Time
Unbelievable! The Solar Empire is sending more agents! A new recruitment wave has started on all the Solar Empire planets. Even allies from other planets like the Bordger, Lyndarie and many more species are joining the recruitment process.
They will arrive on the Marina Base station, which is in a pretty safe spot on Dara III. It will be a long time till they can join my forces but we will stay strong and await them.
And there is more… The Ista Smuggler, a well known, corrupt organization is now interested in Dara III too. The profits they can make with Pora and Kara Energy put them on the spot. They will hinder the Dara Empire and the Dara Cult. Of course they will not be our allies … especially because they also smuggle slaves of every kind of species. But at least they will bring some uproar and will steal resources from our opponents. Maybe at some point they will help us if it is profitable for them. But I am sure we will have some battles with them also.
I hope the new agents will be valuable and learn quickly how to support the Solar Empire and the native Daranians.
This might change everything!