No one will want to believe this story.

I know I would not, if I were reading this from the safety of my home in Ariel City. I know our brave soldiers, sitting in their barracks rooms out in the worlds of our great Alliance, will scoff and mock these words as they do with every other rumour.

But what I saw was also seen by those upstanding citizens of the Core that survived, and by the soldiers that fought to protect them. And by the many dead, who were killed or gave their lives so that we might live to tell the tale.

It was the third week visiting the Border World holdings of Lord Richmond. I had been invited to accompany him on his tour as part of his campaign for election to the Governor’s staff, and no doubt many of those accessing this will have read my earlier, funnier reports, especially the one regarding his bodyguard, Quigley.

In light of recent events, I wish I had been kinder to that courageous man.

The final stop on the world of Lucia was a small factory that Lord Richmond had acquired in a particularly shrewd financial manoeuvre from one of his rivals several years before. Richmond had just finished interviewing the foreman, an employee he had not met before that day, when an alarm started to ring loudly through the factory.

To say that the man’s face went pale barely describes the fear I saw in his face. The simple ringing of a bell was enough to make the foreman utterly terrified. When he was asked what the problem was, he uttered one simple word.

“Reavers!”

Like any sensible person would, we laughed this pronouncement, but allowed ourselves to be hurried out of his tiny office and towards the double doors at the entrance to the factory. We thought we were merely humouring the man, but all around us workers were downing tools and running as if their lives depended on it. Some picked up weapons, mostly knives and larger tools like crowbars; s