The Saga of Emperor Powent are a series of novels, where each chapter (novel) are based on the outcome of a match. Kind of like a campaign story, only the next matches, and the story itself are directly influenced by the outcome of each match.

The first match were played on the map "Intersections", and I would like to direct a great thanx to Chinacat, for helping me with this first storymatch.

Hope you all like it.

Chapter one: Suprise! - Part 1

Emperor Powent pushed aside the drapes. The morning sun lit up the large room like thosands of burning crystals, and made it look even more astonishing than usual. Pownet’s grey hair reflected the sunbeams back out the window, and down on Earth’s biggest shipyard. Located right next to “The Nest”. Emperor Powent’s residence and a seat of power. There was nothing as soothing as starting the day by looking down on this shipyard, Powent thought. Soon, the Bismarck would be ready, and turn the tide in the war against the Clave. Theese barbarians had been an annoyance to him from the day he gained power. 300 years of peace, and the day after he turned in, the Clave suprisingly attacked the outer worlds. Three worlds were lost, another four blockaded within the week. Since then, things had been on a standstill. Fronts were not moving an inch. Powent had been waiting for it, the first diplomatic offers. Offers for peace. But they had never come. The only thing sent their way was more flying bombs. For now, even single scouts could shoot them down and only take minor damage. But the Clave couldnt be that stupid, wasting resources on this forever. They had something up their sleeve. That was why he ordered the construction start of the Bismarck. An enourmous ship, that would have the nessecary power to take back the fallen planets, and bring peace to the galaxy.

Yes, Powent thought. The Bismarck was the soloution. Watching the cranes swinging, the small buzzing freighters delivering materials. It made him a happy man. However, they happy feeling he had relied on so heavily the last weeks, were no longer there. He examined the construction yard, nad yelped! The cranes where not moving. No freighters were in the air. No glowing sparkles from the titancrystalized tools. Powent hit the intercom button with a fierce power. “Leuitenant”, he yelled. ”Get your ass in here now!”. A door in the far side of the slid open. A skinny man appeared, as though he had waited on that order. Long hair where tied up in a knot, but it didnt make him a feminine man. Powent had always respected Lt. Spairs. Therefor, he knew there hard to be som logical reason construction was stopped.

“Spairs, Bismarck is not growing... why?!?”, Powent demanded.

“Sir, the Clave have attempted a suprise blockade on serveral of our planets. They have been building ships in secret all over the system, and their blockade stops vital technologic parts to reach our shipyard. We are currently....”

”Gather info on the Clave strenght around our planets, and the possibility to sneak in shuttles through their blockade. Scan new sectors in neighbouring systems, and see if it is possible to establish jump lanes to them. We need to search new openings!” Powents mind raced through the possibilities. That damned Clave. Why had they not seen this comming. Out of elleven billion people, of course there had to be someon who sympatized with theese barbarians, and fed them with info.

“Sir”, Spairs said in the same strong voice. ”We have already done this. Only the smallest shuttles with the newest cloacking abilities can get past, but they cant be used as freighters. Only for communications. We have already seen through the possibilities, and found a new system to search through. Scanners show no sign of life, other than normal organic growth. Which ensures habitale enviroment. The first exploration scout are already on the platform, ready to go through the jump lane.

God, music in my ears. Powent managed a wide smile. So much work covered why he slept. Spairs where a strong candidate to take his position some time in the future. Being only half his age, he had reached Leutainant in the age of 26. Eight years before any other officer in the force.

“Excellent. Who is the first scout?” ”Sergant Molovich sir”, Spairs replied. “He is a hardend veteran flyer, and has done many and different riot assignments.”

“Good, good. Give the order to launch immediatly!”

“Sir, yes sir!” Spairs grinned. His work were aprooved without questioning. Always a good sign.

The screen were covered in orange, yellow and red, as the camera zoomed in on the launch blast. A small vessel left the platform, and headed for space. In a few hours, thew would get the first news from the first planet. “Prangle”.

Lady Orange. The name reminded Molovich of his first true love. As the Lady Orange lept through the jump lane, covering millions of miles each second, he had lots of time to try and think about what he would face. Giant flying squids? A barren ice planet? Or perhaps the best.. a paradise of resources, new technology and places of leisure. The jump lane fog started to lift, and Molovich stared through. No sign of hostility. At least.. no flying squids in range. Thats a relief he thought. He wondered how the rest of the planets in this system was. HQ should have som knowledge, but he would have to wait until he was completley through the jump lane. As the fog lifted completley, and the planet of Prangle filled his plexiglass. It looked good, not as good as earth, but still good. Malovich reduced speed, and engaged all scanners. Then he linked up the informations stream and redirected it to earth, at the same time as he grabbed the intercom. “Lady Orange to earth, Prangle in wiew, looking good so far. Extracting information on the rest of the system. Transmission done in...”. Malovich looked at the PAD panel on his left front. “3 minutes”.

A few minutes later, Powent grinned even wider back in the HQ. The scanner showed 12 different locations, and all were habitale except for one asteroid belt. This were indeed promising. “All available shipyards are to build scouts and cruisers for exploring this system. Train available workers for space travel and colonization. Lets find us some Bismarck”, Powent ordered. Fifteen different officers moved on with an almost alarming speed. All of them grinning back with delight over the orders.

The doors had just slid shut after the officers departure, when a small green light started blinking, and a small beep filled the room. A radar clerkput his eyes on it immediatly, however, no words were extracted from his mouth.

“Well?”, Powent demanded. “What is it?”.

The clerk faced him. His faced were twinned in confusion. ”Sir, the radar shows movement, but no ships are moving in this vicinity”, he stuttered. “Then what is it?”, Spairs interrupted.

“We dont know sir, it is as if humans should fly through space without ships”. The Clerk took another look at the screen. A few touches of a button made a single dot appear on the screen.

“Sir, it looks like its some kinda ship, some kind of organic ship.”Its heading towards Findor”. “Well, at least its far away”, brummed Powent

A few days later, the screen had spawned more dots. And as they had built and launched the first cruiser to the new system, the “dots” had covered half the system. All radar experts on earth had been brought in to figure out what this was. But all had failed.

Emperor Powents patience were becomming dangerously low.

“ENGAGE!” He yelled.

Lt. Spairs brought details to the command. “Send orders to the Lady Orange, and Glasgow Kiss to engage the unkown identity in quadrant C4, and be sure to bring settles to colonize if successful” “Yes, sir”, someone replied.