The planet of Dra'as Gormud was a spectacular sight.
More accurately, a lack of spectacular sights.
There were no rivers, no forests, not even the ghost of an animal track anywhere on the planet's surface. Instead of life, the whole world looked as if it had been wrapped in a cocoon of grey rock as far as the eye could see, broken only by blocklike buildings that seemed carved from the same stone rather than built on top of it, as if the planet had simply extruded its own prisons.
The science ship Hermes descended through a cloudless atmosphere laced with laser arrays that could slice a hull open like a knife through butter, and patrolled, lazily and thoroughly, by a standing fleet of dreadnoughts that had nowhere else to be.
A dishevelled, drooling brunette woman stirred in the passenger seat and woke with a start, mouth dry, the taste of recycled cabin air thick on her tongue.
"How long was I out?" she asked.
"You fell asleep just before we cleared the black hole," a serious, bespectacled man answered without looking up from what he was typing. The glow of his screen reflected off his glasses; through the reflection, if she'd cared to look, Colonel Lyn could have read the header. TOP SECRET FIELD REPORT.
"Lieutenant Masako, do you have access to classified material?" she asked.
"No. Why do you ask?" Masako said, and closed the report with the unhurried calm of a man who had done this exact thing a hundred times and never once been caught.
"No reason. Have you finished the research I asked for?"
"I have." He answered with an upward inflection that made it sound like a question rather than a confirmation, a verbal tic she'd never quite gotten used to.
"Tell me what you found out about the siege of Boettia."
"The siege of Boettia was a prolonged blockade by UN forces against the Akkadian Empire, led by Commander Herman Wrath," Masako recited. "It became one of the longest and most destructive sieges in recorded history, and very possibly the costliest in terms of civilian casualties. Twenty-fifth-century historians have classified it as genocide, on account of the systematic starvation and the deliberate destruction of the planet's population."
"Good. Did you pull up details on the Battle of Triskelion as well?"
"No need. Every recruit learns about the worst defeat in Federation history inside their first month." A beat. "Why does your aide need a refresher on ancient military history, Colonel?"
"It'll come in handy," Lyn said, and stood, letting the cramped cabin swallow the rest of the question.