INTRODUCTION

Five hundred years ago Rhand was a quiet, pastoral world at the edge of a growing interstellar community.

Specializing in tourism and agriculture, Rhand was a world of open spaces, a world with little industry and few cities.

It was a world devoted to peace and prosperity, not a perfect planet but one with promise.

Five hundred years ago the Spectrals came.

Faceless, jet-black humanoids having a group mind, they launched a full-scale invasion of human space.

Desperate warfare broke out on dozens of worlds.

Rhand saw only one battle between Spectral and human, a battle which still rages, but after the initial assault there was no outside contact with either side.

There were those on both sides who waited for help from the stars;

for reinforcements, or support, or some word, but there was only silence.

The Spectrals and their subject races were able to cripple the civilization of Rhand, but they were not able to conquer it.

Human society was shattered, and in the chaos which had become Rhand the two sides fought on, waiting, as the ammunition ran out, and the machines broke down, and a new generation was born.

And another new generation was born.

And another.

After five hundred years, the old Rhand is just a vague memory, and the world it could have been only a whisper of a dream.

After five hundred years, a fragmented human culture wars with itself as much as with the Spectrals, and even the Spectrals have lost their focus and had their original purpose dimmed.

Other races, whether friends of humanity or Spectral auxiliaries, have branched off on their own, setting up enclaves where they can.

Through it all only one human group has endured, only one culture remembers Rhand as it was and fights to make it what it could be.

From a cadre of dedicated public servants and emergency workers a new civilization was created as the world was destroyed.

Members of police and fire departments, the staffs of hospitals, surviving military personnel, and the residue of the planetary government, all people who continued to fight when others would have, and did, give up on the world as hopeless, this small group fought to restore order, to maintain a functioning society, and to drive back the Spectrals and their servants.

After five hundred years, little of their technology works but they have remembered their purpose, the ideals of peace, beauty, prosperity, honor, and health that they began with.

They are called the Orca, the Morningstar is their tool, and they are Rhand's protectors, saviors, and last chance.

Introduction [R-FRP4-8.1.0.0]