Neptune's Massif by Ben Winston

it stood to move to the center of the room. "However, we do need to choose a new leader for this assembly, you are far too young to assume such a roll."
    The servers quickly cleared the center of the large room. Assassinations like had just occurred was not uncommon among lower castes, but it was very rare at this level. A new leader simply assumed the roll and if anyone didn't like it, they fought. The battles would take place in the center of the room and no weapons were allowed. Any participants that surrendered simply retook their seats. The last one to sit was the new leader.
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    S taff Briefing Room
    Admiral's Office (Temp.)
    Pleiades One Orbital Shipyard
    High Orbit, Planet Atlas
    Centauri System, Sol Sector
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    "L adies and Gentlemen, this is the planet Hyperion located in the Aurigae star system, Durnam Sector. Before it fell to Imperial forces fifteen years ago, it was a Talosian agricultural colony." Ian paused while he looked over the holographic image. "We are going to retake it."
    From the assembled group of officers he heard Chloe Brighton reply. "Excuse me, Sir, your accent must have thrown me there for a minute. I thought I heard you say we were going to retake this planet from the Empire?"
    Ian nodded and grinned. "You heard me correctly, Chloe. In two weeks, Star Dancer will be departing for the Aurigae system for the purpose of retaking the system from the Empire. There are a few reasons we are going to do this. First, this is the closest Imperial incursion to our space. It's not that much further away than Beta Hydri is and that makes me nervous from a security stand point.
    "Secondly, retaking the world would go a long way in helping to quell the civil unrest currently developing at New Talos. I'll grant that retaking a more industrial or more heavily populated one would be better, but this one is the closest to us. It is also not very heavily guarded, since it isn't considered a priority target by either side. Like I said, it is a farming colony.
    "Thirdly, we have received an official request from the Benesian High Priestess, Matriarch T'gan M'orel, to investigate the possibility of recovering missing Benesian ambassadors that were on the planet when it fell. She has only asked us to find her missing people, but after reviewing the Intel on the place, I decided we are going to reclaim it.
    "Hyclarion is defended mostly by ground forces, but includes two light cruisers, a medium cruiser, and eight squadrons of fighters. The difficult part of this operation will be the ground troops. The Empire has a division of infantry on planet, but spread out to provide local security and to control the population. These troops are not front-line and have poorly maintained equipment. However, we have very few ground troops at all, even though ours are much better equipped, it'll still be a hard fight simply because there are so many of them."
    "Not really, Sir," Major Reise replied. "You said yourself that they were spread out; divided into smaller units. It shouldn't be too difficult to deal with them as long as we can keep them from rebuilding into one unit. If we could borrow another battalion or two from the Talosian ships, we could easily handle them. But my question is, once we take the world, how are we going to keep it? We don't have any ships we can leave there for defense, do we?"
    Ian shook his head. "No we don't but that will not be our responsibility, not fully anyway. As soon as we clear the system of ships, a defense network aggregator will be turned loose in the system. It will be up to Admiral Goya and the Talosian Defense Forces to man the system as well as assign ships for system defense."
    "Who'll protect this system while we're out doing this, Sir?" another officer asked.
    "Captain Serena will have overall command, and the Prometheus , Pegasus , and the Zephyr will also remain here for sector defense. In addition to that, I have been informed that