Eliza Daniels, Senior Correspondent to Underwood's Office - RNN
I.S.S. SEVERNAYA - Flagship of the Imperial Family (8 February 2503): The hunt for the most powerful soldier in the Empire has begun.
Imperial Guard General Daniel James Longstreet, Grand Regent of the Reydovan Empire, is being hunted by a squadron bearing the emblem of the Imperial Family and of the Chancellor of the Reydovan Empire. The squadron consists of the Atrus, the Discovery and the Admiral Graf Spee, which are en route to the Commonwealth planet of Daekhra to meet with the flagship, the Imperial science vessel Severnaya. Reydovan Emperor Kiran Joshmaul III is also en route to Daekhra, charged with crimes against the Commonwealth along with General Longstreet, though Longstreet is also being charged with crimes against the Empire itself.
"So it begins," Reydovan Chancellor Joshua Underwood, the man who single-handedly toppled two Emperors in the past, said in an interview. "This is the final war, the one that ends two years of unremitting hostility which the people of the Reydovan Empire and of other nations cannot afford." Underwood was wrongfully exiled by Longstreet shortly before the Severnaya rendezvoused with his flagship, the Atrus, near L'nhraei. The Atrus is being commanded by the Chancellor's aide, Admiral Jeremiah Neill, Jr., the son of Chancellor Jeremiah Neill, Sr., who was assassinated by Imperial rebels on Tiberius Prime. Underwood, as commander of the Imperial Navy, has dispatched the Imperial fleet to surround Reydovan Prime to keep Longstreet from escaping the planet, though the general may have loyalists in some of these ships.
Emperor Joshmaul feels he is innocent of the crimes he is charged with, which include murder, conspiracy to commit murder, unlawful revokation of the Reydovan Admissions Act, conversion, and conspiracy to commit conversion. "I never thought Daniel would stoop so low as to try to attempt a coup," Joshmaul said. "Yet, here's the evidence, as clear as a morning on Reydovan Prime when you're flying above the clouds."
Emperor Joshmaul will address the Imperial Senate when he returns from Daekhra.
