Shadow of the Blue Ring Read Free

duty, raid protection or courier duty between alliance worlds. No matter how many tasks he completed for his superiors, they always seemed to be able to find just one more thing for him to have to do. It was thankless and unglamorous work, almost unworthy of a captain with such a reputation as James now had since his legendary crusade against the Vulian empire. Everywhere he went, his name was known to the people there, spoken as if he was one of the greatest heroes in the history of the alliance.
    James had often found that his new life and his new career as a captain in the newly formed Earth Nations Fleet had not quite been what he had expected. While he had once been able to act as he wished and go wherever he wanted without worrying about rules and consequences, he was now bound by the regulations of the fleet. Because he had not been subjected to the proper training courses at one of the top academies back home on Earth, he often found himself at odds with his superiors when his choices and his actions did not agree with the code he was supposed to abide by. He had received no less than six reprimands during his career with the fleet, the first of which came less than five weeks into his command when instead of making a routine patrol on the border of Dunian space, he decided to make a trip to the Naleyna system, to the planet Anduria.
    During that unauthorised trip, James had been reunited with Ishamira Cavallera, the girl whom he had fallen for during his time aboard the Morning Star. He further upset the chain of command when the two of them refused to be parted, requesting that they both be allowed to return to Earth together. After heated debate between the Human and Andurian admirals, it was agreed that it was better for all parties involved if the two were allowed to remain together. At first, the two of them were assigned to serve on separate ships, only getting to spend time together between missions but once this began to put a strain on their relationship, they requested that they both be assigned to the same ship. Again, many in the fleet were opposed to this course of action but it was eventually approved by the admirals, resigned to the fact that the two of them simply operated so much better as a team than when separated.
    With both James and Isha happily serving together aboard the Centaur, the two of them had been able to take their relationship to the next level. After a year and a half together, James presented Isha with a ring and, six months later, the two of them were married. It was not the celebrity wedding that many in the alliance had predicted, or in some cases hoped for, it was a quiet ceremony with close friends and family held in James’s home city of London followed by a short honeymoon on the Mediterranean.
    In general, life had been good for the newlywed couple, despite the situation in the galaxy around them. None of the alliance races had come out unscathed from the Vulian occupation. The luckiest worlds had been able to recover within a year or two and begin focusing their efforts on assisting the less fortunate alliance races with their efforts where the need for resources was much greater. With the old Tolian alliance effectively dead, these races were helping each other mostly out of goodwill and the friendships that had been formed from being allies for almost a century. It was not until almost four years after the end of the occupation that the old alliance races were officially brought together by Jovan Artennes, Tasos Artennes’s father and the head of the Tolian republic. The new union was named the Freedom alliance, representing the union between all the free races of the galaxy. The only old alliance race that had not yet rejoined, unsurprisingly, was Akris, while negotiations to bring the Myazins back to the alliance had also failed. They, along with both the Shaarians and the Kulayites had decided to remain independent, likely to attempt to remain on the side of the