The Light wall was an achievement the likes of which would never be matched again. A pinnacle of human creation, because who else would build a wall around an entire planet, never mind a solar system?
Who would have ever even dreamed it was possible?
Or thought it was a good idea?
They called it a wall, but in truth it was a bubble. Solar powered torches reaching out to one another in two hundred-thousand-foot squares whenever overlapping sensors picked up an approaching object.
Humanity had been so desperate to block out what they found beyond their own system that they'd sacrificed more lives at a time when they couldn't really afford it.
But it had worked.
The first few alien ships that chose to test it after the war learned the hard way and the debris fields were still floating just beyond the Light Wall.
Isolated from the worlds beyond the Solar System, humanity turned inwards. Solidifying their hold on the Solar System and building an extensive network of stations and roads meant to tame the vastness of space.
They didn't succeed, obviously, but they gave it a good try.
During this time, the countries of Earth faded away into two warring factions and in 3150 it finally coalesced into an all-out civil war. Sparked in part by a revolutionary paper called 'A Treatise on the Conflicting Desires for Freedom and Safety' that argued against the isolationist approach the human race had adopted and was highly critical of the current governments.
Even in the space faring age the written word was more powerful than anything else.
The war lasted ten years and spanned the entirety of humanity's holdings. It ended with a death toll of nearly one billion people and a level of destruction never seen before in human history.
One year ago, it had ended.
3160 i.s. January 1st, at 0212 in the morning, the armistice had been signed between the Federation of Planets and the Republic of Terra and everything changed.
Again.
They fought until the last second. A huge battle along the rings of Saturn that had been going for days, and Finley had been just about finished annihilating her opponents when the news came.
Finley 'Fintan' Fearghail had been one of the Federation's best commanders. If not the very best they had. She'd captained the Firefly for the first half of the war, until it was finally too damaged to continue after 247 battles, all victories, and then she'd turned down a promotion to captain the Usaylee and then the Omaha.
At the Battle of Saturn's Rings, she'd commanded the UFS Titan, the flagship of the Federations Third Fleet and she'd been two ships away from destroying the entire Republican Fourth Fleet when the notification about the armistice came.
On paper, the Republic won the war.
In reality, both sides had suffered such tremendous losses that imprisoning or punishing any of the survivors was impossible. And both governments were so reviled after the conflict that they fell apart as soon as the war was over and were replaced by the first single government in the history of the Solar System.
They called it the United Earth Sphere. A homage to the largest faux-peace organization in Earth's history. They issued an order to pardon all members below the ruling governments highest levels.
That didn't mean there weren't measures taken to ensure that commanders of significant stature and influence weren't controlled after it was all over. Most Admirals and Generals of both sides were forced into retirement with the understanding that they would never hold leadership positions in the government or military again. Even some Captains had been forced out, but a few, whose skill was too valuable to lose, were stuck in a horrible limbo for the year it took the UES to get off the ground.
There were a handful whose actions during the war amounted to sanctioned war crimes, but in several of those cases they died before the war ended. Usually at the hand of someone on their side. Those who survived quickly disappeared after the armistice.
Finley had taken early retirement after the war officially ended, but she'd fully expected them to show up on her doorstep with an arrest warrant every day since and she was far from the only one. Not because she'd committed horrible crimes, but because she was one of the most successful and well-known Captains in the Federation Forces. It was a huge risk for the new government to ignore her.
Most of her peer group had been forced out, skilled or not. Her graduating class as a whole had been decimated by the war, having been on the cusp of their first commands when it started and maturing to Captain in the middle of it. Some of them should have been ascending to Deputy Fleet Commanders or other major commands around the time the war ended, but by the end of it both sides had been so desperate to keep experienced commanders on the field that a lot of careers had stalled.
Finley had stayed by choice, but she knew a few who hadn't and were enraged now that their careers were effectively over.
When they'd finally come for her, they hadn't been carrying the chains she was expecting.
Instead, they had a letter forcibly re-instating her as a Captain and member of the UES Space Force that she'd never actually joined.
Her amazement, and amusement, at their gall had carried her all the way to the new Space Force headquarters, where she'd spent an hour in a waiting room putting up with a show of power from ancient general pulled out of retirement to head the new military.
When he finally came out to greet her, he'd been so frail and wrinkled she figured it had taken him an hour to make it from his desk to the door. General Abernathy had retired before Finley had first joined the military and was one of the few surviving senior officers from that time that hadn't been dragged into the civil war.
He didn't seem anymore impressed with her than she did with him and when he finally spoke the words came out more like a curse than a greeting.
"Welcome back Captain."
~ tbc