The Divine Sedition [Complete]

Chapter 57 The Attack on the Aljadid Salam Outpost

The Aljadid Salam outpost was a House Rashid’s outpost that had been built a couple of centuries before to protect the shipping lanes between Earth and the nearby House Rashid asteroid mining stations. The mining stations had run dry a long time ago, but House Rashid had decided to keep a small skeleton staff on the outpost regardless, to be able to claim that part of space for future use. Sometimes gravity pulled asteroids from the fringes of the solar system to a more central location, and for occasions like that, it was potentially useful to claim vast swaths of empty space for what could host the goldmine of tomorrow. Another reason for House Rashid to keep a multitude of space outpost guarding empty space was to keep their large army busy and occupied far away from Earth to avoid them interfering in internal faction matters.

The attack took place in a similar manner to the Proxima Thule attack six months prior. First Keila’s vessel approached the outpost with Zetan stealth technology to avoid detection. Then they blocked all communication to and from the outpost. Then they stormed the outpost with their kinetic energy absorbers and bionic chip disruptors activated. The unprepared and disrupted House Rashid defenders never stood a chance. Then they set explosives to blow up the station but intentionally used too little explosives to destroy the outpost. This was an intentional ploy as Keila wanted it to seem like a failed attempt by House White to destroy the outpost.

The timing for the attack was something that had come to Keila in a vision. On the day of the shooting, one of the aging Chairman Ibrahim Rashid’s many sons, Akram Rashid, was on-board the station. And he was killed beyond resurrection just like the rest of the defenders. To make it seem evident that House White was behind the attack, Keila and her group had used the weapons and ammunition that they seized from the battle with Alicia White. They also left some of the corpses of soldiers from Alicia’s group at the scene. These corpses being of black ops operatives, had no identity tags in their brains, but it would not be challenging for House Rashid investigators to figure out who they were, just by looking at their uniforms and weaponry.